STRANGE HAULS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 62, Issue 4378, 15 January 1941, Page 7

STRANGE HAULS

QUEER CATCHES IN WAR-TIME.

Fishermen operating from British ports are finding strange objects in their nets. Aeroplane wreckage has become quite a usual haul, together with bits of torpedoes, expended shells, mines (some still actnve), and all manner of gear from sunken ships. A handbag lost by a” woman survivor of the Athenia, the first victim of the war - at sea, drifted about in the water for three weeks before it was recovered by a trawler off the Orkneys. A Scottish boat fished up a complete set r 5 Nazi flying maps on one of her fKps. Another vessel claimed to have entangled a submarine in her nets and brought it to the surface for a short period before its weight carried it down again! However that may be, fishermen are used to queer catches even in peacetime. One interesting find off the Dogger Bank was an ancient cribbage board inscribed with the name of the 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards. Nobody could say how the board got there, for although it was in excellent condition, a search of the records show that the battalion had not crossed the North Sea for well over a century.